The Prince and the Marauders
by Nightfall Rising
Summary: Severus Snape, while fierce, isn't actually all that good at defending himself. But it's just plain suicide, however slow, to go after a child in his care. He's very much his mother's son, and he was in hers. 4/4 AU shorts, variably cracky: Peter always was a deceptively useful little thing. His tragedy is that it's never about him.
1. Remus

This was inspired by a AO3 comment on _The Wicket Gate_ by one Bianca, who said, "I look forward to seeing Snape's mother sicced on the marauders." I decided I did, too. ^_^

I was originally going to post it all at once, but I got an offer from a quite clever Methods of Rationality reader to take a look at _Valley of the Shadow_ and make sure there aren't any epic logic-fails so far. I have to bowdlerize it because he's related to me and _eeyyurrrghno_, and anyway I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to read slash. Besides, I don't know how long it'll take him to read. So we'll be spinning out the interrim one Marauder at a time, and I may post a gen version of Wicket (if it can be done...), because why waste the work.

This is in the Subjectiverse, but AU, AU to canon, each chapter AU to the rest. It's _all_ fine. I mean, AU.

I'll take requests about whether you want James or Sirius next (majority rules or, if it's a tie at the time of posting, first voice wins), but shall we begin gently? }:D

* * *

Remus

"Mam," Severus said flatly. "I am begging you. _Do not do this. I know these people_. I'll have to _see them tomorrow._"

"Belt up, our Very," Eileen told him sternly. "He don't seem like a bad lad, but if he in't taught, he'll never learn."

"Thanks for trying," Remus said weakly.

"Do not imagine," Severus spat, "for a _fraction of a second,_ that I asked it for your sake."

"Well, thanks anyway," Remus said.

"_Aargh_."

Then they were in a cheery room full of ladies of all ages and knitting baskets and the smells of the baked goods piled up in back. A cheery murmur of, "Ney, then, our Ellie, Seth, who's this, then?" went up.

"Owdo, Lizzie and Bess and Sal and all," Eileen said placidly. Severus lifted a hand gloomily, radiating _doomed_. "This here's young John Lupin, what goes to our Seth's school. He's got pulled into a gang of young bullying roughs, and you all know how _that_ goes."

There was some disapproving murmuring, and the mothers of one or two of the of the local bullying roughs (who had long since realized it was in their best interest to leave Seth Snape alone even if he did look a bit of a hippie) got quite interested and rather unpleasant looks. They would be able to explain very clearly to their boys how they felt about everything, now, without picking fights with people they loved and had to live with, who in many cases were twice their size and often soused.

Severus perked up, too, as he realized his mother wasn't going to humiliate him for his own good by identifying him as the victim after all. Internally, of course. Narcissa would have burned his school scarf in front of him if he'd let it show on his face at this age. No use asking how she would have known, she _just would have. _Because Narcissa.

Eileen smiled complacently. "His parents think he ought to learn some good Northern manners before he gets too old for them to take. So they've asked me to look after him this summer. Distant cousin and that. He'll be giving us a hand around the place, seeing as our Seth's got a job." There was some exclaiming over this, and Severus got sort of yanked into the knitting baskets in a flail of long limbs to be fussed over. Steady, paying work was no joke around here, not these days, not even seasonal.

Eileen waited until he'd given out his story and looked spooked enough to bolt (it built character, and he ought to learn to take a compliment one of these days) before she cleared her throat and added, "Well, that's the long and the short of it. You should all be just as quick to ask him if you need a spot of work done as you'd ask the lad."

"I, ah, don't know if I'll know _how _to," Remus started weakly.

"Don't worry, Lupin," Severus said, his eyes glinting, half a skein of old May Perkins's awful, knobbly, itchy orange yarn already wrapped around his hands. "You'll learn loads."


	2. James

James was clearly just _never going to stop;_ even trying to look good for the little Evans girl only made him take it sneakier.

* * *

**warnings** for death and super-extra-hyper-mega AU

Not only did James get the first and the most votes, there was one for MOAR PUNISHMENT! Nolo contendre.

I was asked if these have to be AU: 'fraid so. Severus is aware that his mother has no influence in the Wizarding World anymore, certainly none compared to the Blacks and Potters. He tells her as little as possible. Why upset her when she can't do anything? She has enough to deal with, and he can handle himself.

No, this is not a good or useful or cool example of how to think about one's guardians while drowning in trouble. Especially in a real-life world with standardized judicial and bureaucratic procedures_._ Severus is a _terrible_ role model. No one should use him as one. Srsly. ISSUES.

Also, well...

* * *

The funeral was held two days after graduation, because if he'd died while at school Dumbledore would have felt obliged to get involved. It was closed-casket. No one wants to see what's left after someone's been Hogwarts Expressed (too damn quick, considering what he put her boy through, but better quick than uncertain). Terrible accident, tragic. People's cats really ought not to be allowed to wander around loose on the platform. It had been bound to happen sooner or later.

Lily cried a lot, and appreciated Severus's earnest but breathtakingly lame attempts to look sad for her instead of absobloodylutely thrilled. She let him convince her a change of scenery would do her a world of good and spent the war in Switzerland, getting her mastery in Integrated Magical Theory (Charms Focus) and trying to repair her relationship with her sister.

Petunia, at the time, was studying accounting and walking out with a rather dreary young man. She sufficiently enjoyed being in a relationship while her sister wasn't that her smug graciousness came across as warmth. Lily was never very good at telling the difference, and took it at face value. While never as close as she would have liked, they were on good enough terms that she asked for and got for Petunia's old textbooks when Vernon declared HIS wife wouldn't need to work. Lily's currently overseeing the Wizarding Endowment for the Arts. Its creation was a tough sell, but she could sell Horace on nearly anything, and in Wizarding Britain he's nearly all the support a project needs to get off the ground.

Quite a lot of the funding comes from the Malfoys. They don't care for the head of the program, of course, too icky. But they don't have to speak to her, and concerts and plays and gallery showings are _wonderful_ places to do business. Narcissa is even starting to find wizarding music to like these days, too, which is a great relief. It was dreadful when the only music she could bear was either hundreds of years old or muggle. And Lucius loves the dancing. Well, not the actual dances. The stories make no damn sense. But, you know, the dancers. In their costumes. IfyouknowwhatImean. Besides Draco clearly has melodrama in his blood. They need to make the stage respectable _fast,_ before he shows up on it.

Neville made a more stably humble hero for the public, less apt to fly off the handle at the press, but took just as much flak for his stammering as Harry ever did for his temper. His ensemble support team fumbled around a bit, but they got the job done. Ron felt like a part of something rather than a sidekick. Seamus blew up everything in sight, it was righteous. Dean did a graphic novel about the war later, which set him up well enough to do his own stories. They were almost as epic as Seamus's exposions, everyone agreed. Hermione and Luna were at each other's throats the whole time, but Oxford taught them how to have fun with it. There was no wedding, and there were also no cats (there was one half-kneazle), and the argument about whether the horn in the hall was erumpent or snorkack and going away tomorrow or never waxed eternal.

Parvati and Lavender took Sybill to rehab, once Hermione had explained it to them. A true Gryffindor can stand up even to her friends.

Voldemort choked to death on Trevor while monologuing. Greater love hath no toad. Truly it was the power the Dark Lord knew not.

Neither did anyone else. Frankly, no one knew what to do with that. Not even Rita. In the end, the official story was: Sorting Hat disgorged Sword of Gryffindor, Killing Curse bounced off it like a mirror, hit Voldemort inna face, the end. Much more palatable.

Especially to Voldemort.

(It was totally Trevor.)

* * *

I was going to say:

_Filch couldn't stay on (feeling would have been too much against him) but he could hardly be blamed. He was given a sterling reference, and found to his surprise that his years of experience in maintaining stupidly large grounds full of antiques with a staff of hysterical elves was rather valuable to the museum industry. Adults, especially muggle ones, rather appreciated his expertise, in fact, and Mrs. Norris got unrecognizably fat and spoiled policing shoplifters in the British Museum's gift shop._

But there's nothing to suggest he takes the train with the kids. Quite the reverse, in fact. And Severus implied in Wicket that Mrs. Norris is part kneazle, because she acts more purposeful than any cat I've ever met could be convinced to. I was afraid she might have ended up like Buckbeak was supposed to. :( So it was just a tripping jinx and an illusory cat. She got a burner wand from a Nottingham wandmaker who doesn't use the Trace and has a bit of a crush on her (see my story _Grey in the Dark_ for more on him, if desired, or if you're not having enough of a chocolate craving today).

...Er, yes, that was quite a long note for outtakes to the AU crack. (hides)

**ETA: Only,** Very Small Prophet was curious about why Luna and Hermione didn't get married, since in the Subjectiverse the wizarding world hasn't cared about the gender of marriage partners since sex-change potions made heirs possible for any iteration (there was probably a brief jihad, but it would have been definitively squashed the first time a Black woman wanted to marry a witch). I didn't want to spend too much time on any of the Golden Ensemble in the text, because focusing on pieces of an ensemble fails the point, but questions will sometimes lead to DVD extras (but not spoilers). In fact, this whole fic is an answer to a review. Seriously, reviews are cuddled, not wasted. So:

It's because Hermione's well-intentioned and high-strung ginormous house-elf related research-fail (ie: SPEW) makes me think it would be very, very easy for her to go very, very stubbornly First Wave Feminist about wizarding marriage traditions/ceremonies/vows if she heard or read the wrong thing. And I don't know that Luna would much care about the formalities, which, after all, are about what other people know and think. If any of the spells a marriage could potentially involve felt important, they could do them privately.


	3. Sirius

Sirius was on thin ice with The Noble (and living on its interest's interest's interest) House of Black.

* * *

"…What?" Severus asked, blinking.

"I said _pack up your room_, have you gone deaf?" Eileen asked impatiently

"No, but I may have accidentally eaten the wrong sort of mushroom, because I've heard you tell me to pack up my room twice now," he retorted. "Oh, no, wait, I haven't had any mushrooms of any sort all week. So I repeat: what?"

"Don't you give me your lip," she said, crossing her arms at him with a fond scowl. "We're moving."

"…Are we? Background? Context? Details? Explanation? Fleshing-out?"

"Your hands have been shaking since you got home, cleverboots."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets automatically. "Have not."

"Don't lie to me till you can fool a drunk pup. I'm not an idiot, nor blind with it."

"I never said you were—"

"And you're not much of an occluder."

"...What? I beat Li—everyone at that stupid game every time."

"Never mind. Point is, don't try keeping secrets from your mam, my lad, it won't get you far." She nearly laughed at the sudden panicked look under his lack of expression, the way that just for a second everything that made him particularly hers was swallowed by _sixteen-year-old boy with loosenable floorboards below the bed_, and added almost kindly, "I don't give a goblin's charity what you read or who you take up with, Very, so long as your Dark Arts stay defensive."

He stared at her, and said blankly, "Well, _obviously. _I don't fancy getting my soul et, thanks."

"What about the rest of you?"

His mouth clicked shut. He swallowed, and his hand started shaking again, even in his pocket. All up his arm. Low and looking down, he muttered from under his hair, "No, don't fancy that, much, either."

After a moment, she said, "Albus Dumbledore was my Head of House, did you know?"

If anything, he retreated further. "No, I didn't know that."

"Mm. Had him for Transfigurations. Lovely man. Wonderful with the little kids. Fun, comforting, made everyone feel right at home, kept us all in good order without half trying. Good teacher, too. Made a game of it. He could sort out how everyone learned best, made it easy. But if there was one thing you had to know about him, it was that he had pets."

"Mine does, too," Severus muttered. "About all he does, have pets."

"Had pets," Eileen went on, "and House spirit coming out his ears. Fine for us, of course, but we did hear as he was a bit short with the Slytherins. Not the other two, funnily enough, and even in our House, he never did really trust the ones who wanted to go into politics. Might not even have been House spirit, really. Maybe all that business with Grindelwald, making him think badly of ambition."

He looked at her impatiently. He didn't say _well?_ out loud, but he said it all the same.

"I haven't spoken to him," she said. "Haven't asked him anything about werewolves, or anything of that sort. You won't be asked to explain why you've told me what you haven't told me."

He had flinched, and then relaxed. The look he was giving her wasn't so much suspicious as a mix of _I have a dictionary and you're damn right I haven't told you and we're not done with this_ and _well, if you say so, but probably not, you realize,_ but yes-Mam was winning. "What does he have to do with moving?"

"Your grandfather, on the other hand," she went on, and rolled over his _oh, god, more irrelevance_ groan, "is a right bastard through and through. Didn't want to be associated with a mixed marriage, as you know, or a half-blood—"

"Or a Slytherin, I _know,_ living like this is all my fault, yes, thank you," he snapped, glowering.

"I don't recall your turning my da into a right bastard," she said evenly. "Don't recall your meeting him, in fact. Fairly sure you didn't tell me to marry your da when I ought to have guessed how mine would react, not being about yet. _Quite_ sure I didn't tell you a damn thing about how to ask to be Sorted, or how not to. Do you want information or do you want to whinge and wallow?"

His jaw hung open for a few seconds, and then he shrugged a little, just with his eyebrows, and said dryly, "Information, always, of course."

"Well, then," she said, nodding sharply, and smiled just as dryly. "How much do you think he would have liked being related to a werewolf?"

She saw him thinking so fast he tripped over himself, coming to all the wrong conclusions, convincing himself they were being driven out. "I'm _not,_" he said, eyes huge and anxious and furious, "there were all the tests and there've been moons since—" he choked.

On a spell, if she was any judge. Some days she was amazed no one had strangled that wizard with his own beard yet, but somehow you never thought of it in the same room with him. Probably because all his warmth was real, even if he did crack his spectacles and turn into a complete fumblefingers every time he ran into a conflict of interest. _Men._

"Breathe." She waited till he did, and said, "Even the threat of it was enough to make him angry, Very. Not at us, for once." He blinked, and she smiled. Nasty. "We're not back in his good books, don't worry about having to make nice with the old goat. But he did pay the legal fees."

He blinked again. Slower, this time. Thinking fast again, and this time his eyes didn't open all the way, stayed hooded. "Ah." There was a tiny, tiny quirk at one corner of his mouth, a hook of intrigue.

Neither of them looked in the least like her mother, except for the black eyes and when he looked like _that._ Avoiding a traditional wedding like her mother's was, if she was honest, one of the reasons she'd been willing to risk this life. At least under muggle vows a witch was free to take the best path she could see, however cramping the circumstances. Wasn't forced passive and obedient, or into some shameful, furtive scramble for loopholes just to owl a never-seen grandchild a book or robe designated rubbish now and again. Eileen certainly hadn't been thinking of the possibilities of a box out back painted 'Severus's dustbin' when she'd named her boy after her father, just of softening him, but Julilla had turned out to have a quite a mind under that round, placid face, once she'd decided she'd needed one.

"It won't go to the Wizengamot," she assured him. "Ry—that's Orion Black, to you—he never liked a fuss." Had, as she recalled, been quite chuffed about a feisty betrothed who was more than happy to take care of that end of things. Well, you got what you wished for. She had—and she could live with everything she'd wanted, too, they just couldn't with each other. It might even be the same for Ry, but of course she couldn't ask now. "And the boy didn't want his friend exposed, either, of course."

Severus looked like he wanted to agree and was spell-stifled. Instead, he didn't-quite-ask, "They settled, then."

"And," she agreed, "we're taking a summer place. So pack up your room."

"Is Da coming?"

She pursed her lips. "We're going to the Wizarding area in the Sherwood. Do that teashop." Severus looked surprised and pleased, which was ridiculous. As if she didn't know how much he liked that forest, or how many shopkeepers on the commercial street already knew he'd cut his own throat before he traded them anything cut-rate. "He wouldn't like it. I'll be back and forth to look after him, see he eats, see he isn't shamed. You know how he gets about who brings the income. We'll work up a story, see how it goes."

He nodded slowly, and pressed a hand against the faded wallpaper, a lingering touch. Then he said, "Right," and went upstairs at a brisk clip.

* * *

This is a Severan fantasy (he knows delegating Sirius's punishment to Walburga is both safest and most effective). Eileen is, as she just implied, a Gryffindor. And not a legilimens outside of this AU-fantasy. If she knew what-all went on at that school or had actually gotten her hands on Sirius she would have just beaten him to a pulp with her shoe. Or umbrella. You know, whatever was handy. Making sure the face damage was irreparable. Not killed him, though, because she did know Orion and wouldn't wish losing a child on him. Or even his nutjob wife. Besides, once someone dies one no longer has any say in whether they suffer_. _

'That stupid game' is, of course, Cluedo (Hasbro's Clue on my side of the pond), which was originally produced in Leeds, England, in '49. Severus is a natural occluder, but talent isn't training and anyway he actually rather wants this information known.

The sort of vows she's talking about aren't in common usage anymore. She's mistaken in thinking their purpose is to bind the witch to obedience, and has probably gotten muddled by living in a society that's more gender-role than caste-conscious for almost twenty years. In fact they're meant to bind the member of a couple with less blood-purity or overall status into their new family, partially so no one can doubt that they're part of it and won't be dragging their children down with muddy or otherwise grubby influences. Again, not in common usage, but her grandfather was a good negotiator and her mother, whose latent cunning had not been developed in Hufflepuff, fully intended to be a loyal wife and didn't think there could be any harm in it. Not really funny how the following two generations _both_ decided they wouldn't make that kind of naive mistake and then spent their lives defined by one.

Re witches named after months named after Caesars... (whistles casually and finds an ornate hat to duck under. The vulture will protect me. It was just a thought. An idle whim. This is a crack AU frivolity—LOOK, TRANSFERENCE COMES FROM PLACES, OK?! _ohgod this is totally headcanon now this idea happened like five minutes before posting..._)


	4. Peter

Peter always was a deceptively useful little thing. His tragedy is that it's never about him.

* * *

**warnings **for Slytherin, Severus's brain (is supersaturated, byzantine, siroccan, eclectic, and parenthetical. Right: like this. Now you're warned), and more pruney-prismy judgy snobbery than you can shake a white picket fencepost at. Although, in fairness, the eye of the beholder is at this point in his life less telepathic than spitting-cat defensive. Well, always more, but currently even more than that.

Given the audience, maybe I should warn for a lack of Lily-bashing? Nah, redundant: I already said 'Severus's brain.'

* * *

"Well, haven't you smartened up," Petunia said, purse-lipped, giving Severus a critical once-over. Given that her approaches to him had, historically, run the gamut from sneering shame-the-grubby-punk formality (misplaced: it was only informality he didn't know what to do with) to actually chasing him off with a broom once (so ironic he'd actually told his friends about it), this was practically a hearty handshake and a kiss on the cheek.

His mouth quirked a little: she was utterly transparent, and he didn't _entirely_ disapprove. She still didn't like him, and the softening wasn't because he had gone a step (or twelve) upscale, exactly, but because she saw it as him making more of an effort. He doubted she could tell the difference between tailored and off-the-peg (it hadn't been _his_ idea, and if Lucius had just let him buy something ready-made, the maniacal greased bulldozer, Severus could have spelled the cuffs the way he wanted them without a two-hour argument), let alone between random wool and cotton blends and potion-neutral ones (linen and silk in varying ratios, usually. There was a rising fad for including, of all things, bamboo fibers in the thread). All she saw was that, for the first time since she'd known him, his clothes fit him and even went together. Neat and tidy.

He liked that himself, it being a heartcracking relief not to have to shuffle about drowning in secondhand clown clothes and silent labeling, but to her it was everything. Never mind he'd never had an option before: slobbing about had been perverse of him. If she'd been swayed by the evidence of money rather than what she saw as effort it would have been utterly contemptible, but this was just her being her, Normal Is Everything.

Brain-dead and painfully dull and _really_ not his style, but fair enough: entirely consistent. And something to be grateful for, on a global level, though obnoxious the way she did it. If no one was, well, Hufflepuff, happy and proud to do the always-the-same and the caretaking work year after year, everyone else would starve and rot so on. And if there was no 'everyone else,' none of the eccentricity that so often meant creativity or restless exploration, Petunia probably would already have been dead or never-born of unvaccinated, untreatable smallpox or plague. Or of exposure due to no one's having invented architecture or even fire and leather. A place and use for everyone. Pity she didn't understand that.

But he did. And, more importantly just now, she was in a position to smooth his way or get seriously in it. Right now, even her voice speaking against him might add force to a weight of inertia that didn't need any, and if she _didn't_ speak against him the whole family would die of shock. Shocks shook people, could leave them unsure of what they'd been convinced of, ready to think again, give an idea a second look.

Accordingly, he turned his public-school accent on 70%. Not enough to sound like a fake and a poser, but, again, enough to say Yes, I Now Know How Respectable Works And Am Doing It. That was the sort of thing Petunia appreciated. "Well, we're not kids anymore," he allowed with a bit of a shrug, holding out his hand. "You're looking well yourself, Petunia." Not _Miss Evans_; that'd be overdoing it. Smarmy. But not _Petty_, either. He'd never used _Tuney,_ of course. There was nothing harmonious about her, and Mam would have slapped him if it had turned into fish-jokes. _Especially_ since she looked a bit like a halibut sometimes, when she used her mouth in certain ways.

She took that in, and her shoulders relaxed a little more. She even shook his hand (although in a dead-rat sort of way. He gave her the Businesslike Reliable Person shake. She probably would have found even the mildest admiring one offensive even if he could have brought himself to do it), even as she said, "She doesn't want to see you, you know."

"I know," he said, mostly managing not to flinch. "I'm not asking. Would you just give her this, please? It's just from a normal store," he added, seeing her flinch, and pointed at the cord. "See? Anything you can plug in is always normal. Getting the other sort to work with electricity is very difficult, really specialized stuff. They don't go together."

"She never told me that," Petunia said slowly. Planning protections, if she was clever, given how thaumaphobic she was. He didn't know her well enough to guess. She wouldn't be able to rig anything serious, but if she felt safe in her own space she might relax enough to plague everyone's life out less. If anyone knew about that sort of thing, it was him.

"I expect she could get pocket money without a developing a tutoring habit," he said, as though she'd been asking for an apology for his swottishness. He wasn't going to admit he'd heard her criticizing Lily and take a side, not now. "I won't take up any more of your time, and I ought to be off for work in any case."

Which he should, really, but it was pure showing off his not-being-a-layabout for her. It wasn't as though Lucius or even Mr. Malfoy gave a damn what time he started or stopped as long as it all got done.

He walked until he was out of sight before getting on the Manor's broom, too. And they all said he had no tact.

* * *

The gravel against his window had him flinging himself out of bed, his heart pounding, the unTraced wand Lucius had arranged for him pointed unerringly against the night sky before his eyes were even open.

It turned out to be 'just' her. He slid the old rope ladder out the window and climbed down, followed her silent back to the old tree that was, in its way, theirs. They sat in a choked silence, looking at each other, at the sky, at their hands.

Finally Lily said, "Usually when boys want to apologize it's, you know, flowers and chocolate and jewelry and that."

"You wouldn't have believed I meant any of that trite shite," he pointed out.

"Well, no," she admitted, and started to giggle, "but, Sev, a… a lava lamp?"

He shrugged, sheepishly. "What runs red and clear and is muggle all over?"

"It's _disgusting!"_ she laughed.

"I know," he admitted. "It's worse than it looks, too; I think the blobs are made of chicken fat."

"_Eeeewwwwww…_"

"I didn't mean it," he said, catching her eyes before the laughter had gone out of them. Take any advantage you can make. "I _didn't_. I don't think like that. How could I? Just because Da's... You know I love your mum and dad, you know I loved Gran, you know I'm perfectly happy to help Mam with the neighbors when I'm home. You know what I think about what Mam's parents did to her for marrying Da. I can't get away with not talking that way sometimes any more than you could get away with wearing green and silver to Quidditch matches. It shouldn't be the same as something that trivial, but it is. It's awful and it's wrong and _I can't say so_, Lily, I'm sorry, but I can't. And I shouldn't have said that to you, you _know_ I'm sorry. _I had to get you out of there_. If it had ended because you'd helped me, you have no idea how bad things would have been for us both. You're _exactly right_ about Mulciber, you don't know how right you are. I would have said anything to get you out it. He said 'don't make me hex you.' I would have if I'd had to, too. It would have been safer for us both than letting everyone see me let you help me, in the long run."

He took a breath and added, "I never said that, and you never heard it. If I have to obliviate you and walk away with you hating me, I will. Everything else is up to you, but you _have_ to promise me you never heard that from me."

After a long dangerous moment, she sighed. And leaned up against him. "What can I say, then?"

He shrugged, all the tension running out of him, and wrapped an arm around her, tight and fierce with gratitude. "What do I care? Say I groveled until you couldn't take it and gave in. Say I gave up on you, too, and we're still not speaking; that might be easiest and smartest."

"That's awful, Sev."

"World's pretty awful, Lils. Frontal assaults aren't much use against entrenched special interests and the well-financed status quo." He grinned sharply down at her. "Good distractions, though."

She eyed him whimsically. "You're ruddy scary sometimes, you know that?"

"I'm learning."

"You shouldn't have spent on a toy," she said idly, frowning. "Couldn't you have charmed something?"

"Even odds I'd have to go through your sister, not your parents," he shrugged. "And I am working this summer, and, ha, they didn't just pay for the clothes, they more or less forced them on me at wandpoint. Besides, we don't have to worry about the electric bill anymore."

She looked at him, not sure whether to be pleased or alarmed. "You got rid of the telly? Is your Da, erm, is he better?"

He pursed his lips. "He is better with me working," he said judiciously, "as long as I don't talk too much about the details. Not in the house all day, and I think it makes him feel better that he's raised someone who can get a job, not just read and," he air-quoted, "'cook.' But no, we didn't get rid of it; I helped Mam fix up a generator."

"How'd you manage that?" she asked, smiling. "I didn't think you knew anything about engineering."

"It isn't engineering," he said proudly, "it's technomancy. Runs on runes and rodent-power, there's this hamster-wheel we rigged. She found the schematics in an old _Ruby Goldberg _journal from when she was a kid."

"Wait, that name sounds familiar. Isn't it a muggle thing? American?"

"Her brother was. Half-bloods. She had magic, he didn't. Rather famous, actually. Cartoonist. She named it after him; her real name was Lillian. He designed all sorts of ridiculous things. Clever, if you don't care about efficiency. He was only doing it to be funny, but she was a witch, and she made things that _worked _out of them."

"That sounds familiar," she said, squeezing his arm and smiling at his enthusiasm, "only a little backwards."

"...Backwards?""

"It sounds like the wrong one was named Lily," she explained lightly.

He went all choked on her for a minute again, in a quite different way, and then matched her light tone. "Oh, it's worse than that; one of his middle names was Lucius."

"_Ewwwwww!" _she cried again, laughing, and saw one of his tiny smiles in the moonlight. "Where'd you get a hamster, then?"

"Didn't, we found a rat."

"Oh, not one of those nasty, vicious things off the river, Sev."

"No. I thought she'd want to send me for a magical one from Nottingham or Diagon, but she said there'd been a rather wily one poking around the house. That's what gave her the idea."

"I thought you had vermin-repelling runes down everywhere?"

"We do. I'll have to renew them, I suppose. Maybe they wear off if you just do them in onion and lemon juice instead of a wand. We caught the thing in my bedroom, for some reason. Lord knows why, it's not as though I keep food in there, and the candles didn't look nibbled. I wasn't sure it would do, being standard-issue, but Mam just looked it in the eyes for a second and said it was perfect…"

* * *

I sorta wish this one wasn't AU. However, I have other plans. Which we'll get started on next post, promise.


End file.
